here is healthful, and the soil of exceptional fertility, producing bountiful crops when watered. Cereals, alfalfa and sugar beets are the principal crops, although apples, small fruits and garden vegetables do well. On account of the fine range country surrounding the project alfalfa will always be a staple product. It produces about four tons to the acre at present, and is fed to dairy cows and other livestock. A beet sugar factory is now in operation at Billings, and the farmers are increasing their acreage in this crop, as it is very profitable. Many farmers report a net yield for last year of $50 per acre in beets. Unusual facilities for transporting crops to the large markets are afforded by two lines of transcontinental railroads, the Northern Pacific, and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, which traverse this tract. No farm is more than three miles from a shipping point. There are eight new towns on this project at intervals of about five miles, along the two lines of railroad, and town lots are now offered for sale by the Government at reasonable prices. The educational facilities are as good as can be found in any agricultural community. Many of the country schools are graded. Not far from the thriving city of Great Falls, Montana, the first unit of the Sun River project was opened in 1908. The project, when completed, will be one of the largest undertaken by the Government, irrigating 174,000 acres. On the northern border of Wyoming, in a region of exceedingly rough country, the Government has built the highest dam in the world (Plate II). This structure rises 328 feet above its foundation, and blocks a very narrow gorge. It is 108 feet thick on the bottom, and only 175 feet long on top. The work here was difficult and dangerous. Workmen were lowered into the canyon, the walls of which are hundreds of feet high, and with ropes. about their bodies as they worked, put in drill holes for blasting. Before work could be begun on this structure it was necessary for the Reclamation Service to build a road eight miles in length to get into the canyon. This road was cut for most of the distance from the solid walls of rock. The dam creates behind it a beautiful lake with a superficial area of ten square miles, and an average depth of seventy feet. Twelve miles below the Shoshone dam a diversion dam has been built in the river which turns the stream into a tunnel 34 miles long. The tunnel is connected at the outer end with a large canal which carries the water out upon 100,000 acres of choice land. A portion of this area is open to settlement at this time to bona fide citizens of the United States. Several hundred families have now taken up their homes there. The land is very level and irrigation is comparatively simple. The crop yields are heavy and consist of grain, vegetables, and hay. Most of the farm houses are neat and well built, but small. The new settlers rarely have much capital to start with and such little as they have is needed to tide them over the first year or two of development of their property. The irrigated farms are producing profitable crops, the towns are growing rapidly and the community as a whole is prosperous and contented. In southern Wyoming another large work is well under way. The structure known as the Pathfinder dam is located just below the junction of Sweetwater and North Platte Rivers (Plate III). Most of the water thus conserved, however, is utilized many miles from the reservoir, in eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska. The dam is erected in a narrow canyon of the North Platte River at the identical point where General John C. Fremont, the noted explorer, nearly lost his life while attempting to get through in a boat. This structure is 215 feet high and creates an enormous reservoir with a storage capacity of 1,025,000 acre-feet, or enough water to cover Rhode Island a foot deep. To better appreciate the quantity of water in this reservoir it should be understood that it is sufficiently capacious to hold back the greatest flood ever known in this turbulent stream. In connection with this dam and reservoir the Government has built a diversion dam in the River to turn the water into canals on both sides. The north side canal is ninety-five miles in length and carries the waters to lands in Wyoming and Nebraska. The south side canal just completed is more than one hundred miles long. Owing to the rough country along the canal route, several large concrete viaducts were constructed and for several miles the canal is lined with cement. More than a thousand families have taken up homes on this project. Their crops are those of the north temperate zone, consisting of sugar beets, corn, wheat, oats, alfalfa, etc., also vegetables and small fruits. There are many beautiful and attractive homes on the project. Northeast of the Black Hills in South Dakota, lies the beautiful valley of the Belle Fourche. All streams tributary to Belle Fourche River are intermittent, that is, they are very low |